


the woman is the king

by mchalowitz



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:34:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26970715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mchalowitz/pseuds/mchalowitz
Summary: a throughline of the matriarchal scullys; be they ethereal, sharp-witted, and ill-omened.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	1. melissa

Her door is barely open enough for a hushed conversation.

“It’s Friday night, Mulder.”

Scully keeps attempting to have a separation between work and home. After the underwhelming experience with Rob, she is sure Mulder is aware of this; that she wants to have a semblance of a personal life, even if she is dedicated to their cases. He is making it prove difficult, with his work and his interests so intertwined. It never ends.

“I know, but these reports just came through,” he insists. “You need to see them before…”

A cacophony of flatware and curse words comes from the kitchen. Scully continues to stare up at him, unperturbed, but Mulder’s eyes flash upward over her head. Behind his eyes, he is creating a story; putting together puzzle pieces that do not exist. 

“Got a date in there, Scully?”

A female voice, its volume raising in comparison to the muttered expletives, calls, “Dana, is that the pizza?” 

“My sister,” she corrects. 

Scully has seen Mulder reserved in the face of criticism, but he seems sheepish, maybe even embarrassed, at the idea that his obsessive nature was exposed to this audience. She finds the bashfulness radiating from him to be endearing in a boyish sort of way.

He gives her the stack of papers held together with a binder clip. Not one of the small ones, no, one of the big ones meant for thick analysis that will take an entire weekend to sift through. “Just look them over when you get a chance,” he tells her.

She nods, and when the door is shut, Melissa appears behind her like a graceful apparition. “Working on a weekend,” she marvels. “Sounds like someone else I know.”

“Shut up.”

“Are you going to ask him out?”

Scully turns away, retrieving her wallet from her purse, and starts counting out bills for their soon-to-arrive dinner. “It isn’t like that with Mulder, our relationship is professional,” she babbles. “I already got caught up dating in the bureau before and people that really matter in the FBI are finally starting to see my value after two years of paying my dues at the Academy, I’m not going to jeopardize my future by consorting with my partner.”

“Consorting?” Melissa retorts. “Come on, Dana, be honest. If he were just a guy on the street, would you?”

She thinks. Mulder is ambitious, brilliant, and has an unrivaled sense of humanity. His dedication is frighteningly thrilling. It gives her an enthusiasm to strive for more.

Scully realizes the list could go on. Mulder’s positive qualities are more than can be said about most of the men she’s been involved with and in only a short amount of time knowing him.

Yes, she probably would. If he were just any guy.

The doorbell rings.

“No.”

–

Exiting the elevator, Mulder has anticipation in his step. His keys are already out and he hopes he’s beaten Scully to the door. It’s her first day back in the office.

And after interviews, and doctor’s approvals, and signatures, she’s been fully cleared to be back in the field. Fearing desk duty or reassignment, both of them are quietly ecstatic that they can pick up their work.

He nearly jumps when he sees a flash of copper in front of the door. _Damn._ But then he notices it’s attached to an unfamiliar head on a taller body. It’s Melissa.

“How did you get down here?” he asks, no introductions. Melissa steps aside so he can unlock the door. He invites her in with a wave of his hand.

“You would be surprised how far you can get with some kind words and a good explanation,” Melissa says. She runs his hand over the books on top of a filing cabinet. She looks over her shoulder at him. “Something to consider for the future, Mulder.”

He continues to stare.

“I told security I had an appointment with you. No one argued,” she smiles, almost amused with herself. “Dana tells me we’re very similar. With all of our ‘wild ideas.’ You know what wild ideas I have, _Fox?_ The concept that my sister can go to work and no one has to worry that they’ll never see her again.”

 _Scully knows the risks of the job,_ Mulder wants to say. _Do you really think I get a vote on the decisions she makes?_

“I care about Dana.”

“Then you’ll go easy on her.”

He nods, even though it’s a lie. He wants it to be the truth. The question isn’t whether he’ll go easy on her or not. He already knows, and he believes Melissa does too, that Scully will only push harder if he tries to lighten her load.

When Melissa leaves with a warning glare, Mulder shuffles papers until Scully arrives with Dr. Pierce. He promises himself that he will not be compelled by whatever this guy presents to him. Above all else, they will not take this case.

Listening to the tale of something possibly wandering around in temperatures of 130 degrees, he repeats _not interested_ to himself, even though he is really, really interested.

“ _I want to work.”_

He reminds himself of his conversation less than an hour ago.

Lead investigator is not a title Mulder takes that seriously. He has never been able to successfully sway Scully in her beliefs and pulling the authority card doesn’t seem like a tactic that would go over well. And while it’s a fact he will keep to himself, in her absence, he sees how utterly incompetent he can be without her.

He’s got an angel and a devil on his shoulders, two dueling Scully sisters. He suggests time off anyway.

“ _I’ve already lost too much time,”_ she replies. Oh, that guts him. She knows how easily convinced he can be with some good poetic phrasing.

It won’t be a very intense case. Probably just watching that same footage, giving some opinions on the evidence. It’ll end up being something they can toss to another, more equipped agency. The explanation soothes him enough to not block the door when Scully leaves to pack a bag.

Lying in a month-long quarantine, he has a lot of time to wonder by what means Melissa Scully will kill him.

–

Mulder toes the line between agnosticism and fairweather judaism; a fact that Scully has always respected, and never pushed back against. 

He normalizes empty pews and suspicious clergymen. The sea of mourners for Melissa Scully is a foreign sight. 

Guilt feels like a target on his back and he hopes no one will shoot the proverbial arrow, hoping for a bullseye. Or maybe he does. 

He sits right behind the reserved row and his eyes follow Scully as she walks gracefully up the aisle. She once described her sister as ethereal to him, a gossamer darling, but in her sorrow, it is she, it is Dana, that is the diaphanous messenger of all that is holy and light in the dark.

Scully doesn’t acknowledge him as she sits. He averts his eyes when he briefly meets the eyes of Mrs. Scully. Behind her crow’s feet and unwaveringly maternal gaze, he sees Dana, he sees Melissa.

The priest tells the legend of Melissa Scully that Scully never divulged to him. She studied anthropology at Brown and spent two years on an archeological dig in Peru. In her thirty-three years, she lived in four different countries, but felt a special connection to her teenage years in California. It is possible she cared more for her community than for herself, she appreciated art in all of its forms, and she loved writing letters to her beloved sister, Dana, while she was away at medical school.

Almost imperceptibly, Mulder sees the sharp raise of her shoulders, the sudden intake of breath. Her hand covers her mouth. He reaches forward and places his hand on her shoulder. She lays her hand over his. 

“The dynamic presence of Melissa Scully is a gift to the Lord,” the priest finishes. “Let us bow our heads in silent prayer.” 

Mulder wonders how Scully even allows his presence in the same space as her, allows him to breath the same air when they both know he is the reason her sister is dead. This stupid, this _idiotic_ pursuit of his, that ruins lives with no remorse, and yet he remains powerless to surrender. 


	2. dana

The exam room is harshly lit, brutally overclean. When the doctor gives the diagnosis, it knocks the breath out of her, and she has the audacity to declare her gratitude. How could she.

The fragility of her age comes to mind on the drive home; her eyes prickle watching her copy of her oncology referral slide across the dashboard.

Dana is only thirty-three. Melissa was only thirty-three. She ponders her mother, Maggie, at thirty-three. Her destiny already decided; along for the military ride. She was carrying the fifth Scully child that year. Their matrarical line is cursed by the thirty-third year.

She simmers with the news for a few days; plotting methods of delivering impending doom. Mulder, the usual harbinger of bad news, is the one she tells first, and she believes using a clinician’s touch might soothe her.

The pronoun that binds them, the “we” travels from his vocal cords to the air between them. When he pauses, she can fill in the blanks of how he wants the sentence to end. _We can do something about this_ or _we can fix this._ The problem is, there isn’t anything to be done.

Inside her head is a glass and cancer is the water from a faucet turned all the way on. They are merely waiting for the overflow.

–

Tara is pregnant; she is having a boy. Her brother’s wife is thirty-three. It must be so nice, to be dubbed a Scully, and yet remain so blessed at this foredoomed age. 

An appointment to be pumped with poison and Tara’s baby shower fall in the same week. What a scheduling nightmare, she jokes, when she declines the invitation with warm regards. Bill does not laugh and he buys their mother a plane ticket. 

The total lack of skeletal structure takes her over, has her melted into the couch. Scully finds the initial nausea passes quickly this time. It is the wave of self-consciousness from Mulder bearing witness to this betrayal of her body that lingers. 

“It must be kind of exciting,” Mulder comments. She is watching him wipe down the counter and she doesn’t remember a single time she has seen him willingly clean anything. He is not half-assing any of the responsibilities bestowed upon him by _the_ Mrs. Scully. 

“It might be more exciting if it were someone else,” Scully responds, forgoing her usual diplomatic response on the subject. 

Mulder pauses, focuses in on her eyes, and in unsaid words, he nods in agreement. He throws the wet rag into the sink with a stomach-churning squelch and falls beside her on the couch. 

“You know,” she adds, “Melissa always said she wasn’t going to have kids until she was forty.”

Melissa would goad her into increasingly ridiculous futures; nothing is more ridiculous than futures that will never exist. Neither of them could have predicted such an outcome. 

When they were young, one Scully sister was rarely found without the other. It was only the intricacies of adult life that would split them apart. Melissa yearned for adventure; to shed ideals and expectations from their youth in far off places. Their parents envisioned a certain fate for their children, and Dana followed it, until she didn’t. 

As she conjures up those conversations about where their lives would go, she realizes she cannot even remember her voice. It rolls over her like a wave, the awareness of fading memories, and it cracks her guise held barely together. 

Her glassy eyes brim and she finally crumbles, feeling wholly pathetic. She lacks her usual resiliency that he is accustomed to seeing from her as she weeps, “My sister is gone and I have cancer, Mulder.”

“I know,” he says.

“I’ll miss everything,” she whimpers. The weight of mortality hits her; the decades worth of wasted holidays and the lost memory of her nephew’s birth. Scully will never stand in resolution with her partner after their tireless work for the truth. The loss of an uncomplicated life feels enormous. 

She laments what she was never sure of even desiring; the two-story in the suburbs, the babies of her own, the one true love…

“Let’s get married.”

–

His offer hangs in the air. Scully cries a bout of nausea and bolts for the bathroom. When she emerges, Mulder is there to tuck her into bed.

The sun sets and it rises again on a new day. She comes out of the bedroom apprehensively. Finding Mulder on one knee in her hallway isn’t an idea she can rule out completely. It wouldn’t even come close to the craziest thing she has seen him do.

Sitting at the kitchen table, Mulder rubs circles into his forehead with his cell phone pressed to his ear. She gets close enough to vaguely hear the caller on the other end, listen to the outrage behind, _“I couldn’t even put the kettle on without her standing right behind me. In my own home, Fox,”_ and making it seem as though this is the only issue in the world that matters. And Scully kind of wishes that was true.

“That’s her job, Mom,” he replies. The tone of his voice almost makes her laugh. A polite but clear _get me out of here_ she knows well that comes out during conversations with authority figures, midwestern cops, and not unsurprisingly, mothers. 

Their eyes meet, he looks at her as though she is his unsurpassable savior. He begs off the phone, making the usual adult child promises, and sets his cell phone down on the table. 

Scully commends Mulder for trying to be more involved with his family since his mother’s stroke. But what a fate he has, caring for the medically and emotionally broken women in his life. He gives her a tight lipped smile and she asks, “Is everything alright?” 

“Jury’s still out,” he declares with a shrug. He stands and starts walking toward the kitchen. “Can I get you anything? Water, toast, a ring?” 

A certainly interesting turn of events for them, a question that could develop into an actual conversation about the night before. 

“Mulder.”

“We could get married, Scully.” 

“This is so like you, Mulder. This is your stream of consciousness decision making,” she counters. Scully flattens her hands on the table, takes a breath, and attempts to change her tone to sound a little more kind. “I know the idea that I’m dying is bleak. But there are implications to getting married. I couldn’t do that to you.” 

Scanning Mulder’s eyes, Scully can see he understands what she means by implications. “Don’t think about that,” he tells her finally, “If you really believe this is the end, what do you still want to experience?” 

Scully’s eyes flash away, toward the door. Four years ago, she stood in that spot, and assured her sister unequivocally of her absolute disinterest in dating her new partner. Even if he were just a guy. 

Selfishness has often forced a wedge between them; a precursor to many experiences they would have as partners. His brilliance and humanity drew her in then, not unlike the way it does now. When the question was posed– _just any guy–_ their debates were thrilling, a little flirtatious even, and now they can absolutely infuriate her, but she respects his ideals, and she knows that sentiment is reciprocated. 

On occasion, Scully is even a little selfish, and allows herself to appreciate just a guy with a little flop of hair that falls onto his forehead, and with the most charming smile. 

Whether it be guilt or admiration, Mulder wants her to experience everything before it gets taken away. She can admire the altruism. 

Mulder doesn’t ask again, he only suggests. And she accepts. 

–

The commencement of their marriage is without fanfare in a government building on a Friday afternoon with grocery store flowers and a safe kiss on the cheek to clinch the deal. There are no rings but he holds her left hand as they bound down the courthouse steps. During their late lunch at a local diner, the waitress notices their attire, and offers them a free slice of pie, any flavor they want, because it is a special occasion. 

A few paces ahead of her on the way to the car, Mulder opens her door. “Your getaway car, my bride,” he teases. The smile on her lips quickly fades. His jovial face morphs to confusion. 

But it’s the drip. Blood splatters on the clean, clear plastic protecting their chocolate cream. She tries to maneuver for her purse but he quickly procures tissues from the inside pocket of his jacket. 

He squats next to the passenger side of the car and holds tissues to the nose of his bride. 

–

Something is weirdly, intangibly incorrect. 

It starts with weekend plans. Mulder is already well aware of her singular escape, her monograph for the Penology Review, with its looming deadline coming up. 

He normally makes comments about her unwavering professionalism. It is a mutual agreement to keep their marriage to themselves. The federal government has no investment in the inner workings of their lives; they are legally married and they both know that could easily mean reassignment for both of them. It doesn’t stop him from sneaking in a few witticisms for his own amusement. 

Mulder knocks. That’s weird.

The wine is truly suspicious. Except for the occasional beer, Mulder was never much for alcohol to begin with, but what is especially bizarre is the sudden lack of concern over her doctor’s recommended meal plan. He had been following it down to the last letter, and while a glass of wine is not exactly forbidden, it is not the first item on their shopping list. 

“ _We never really talk much, do we?”_

Admittedly, the shared looks and delicate touches of silent communication is where they excel, but the question is still somewhat puzzling. Since beginning a routine of casual marital cohabitation, she believes they talk quite a bit. The minutiae of everyday life is often a topic of conversation in ways it never has been. 

Scully still plays along by agreeing that, no, they don’t talk. She sips wine and tells him true-ish stories of Marcus, the prom date of _a_ Scully, but not herself, and the infamous pumper truck scandal involving her brother Charlie. 

Romantic intimacy has not exactly been a component of their marriage and she has found that cancer does not make one feel like the most desirable of specimens. He has never expressed anything to make her believe he feels anything for her beyond friendship, despite the deep affection they share. 

He leans in now; his eyes closed and head cocked. Kissing him isn’t a repulsive idea, but it just seems off, because Mulder is acting so strangely out of character. 

Scully scrambles off the couch to get away from the man that is so clearly not her partner. Absolutely horrified, she stares at Mulder, and has no reservations when he steps forward to cuff the pathetic and vile man that invades her living room. 

–

Many lines have still not been crossed and she doesn’t think they ever will be. The cancer is still aggressively present with the treatments doing very little. 

Scully prepares herself for the eventuality of hospitalization, potentially for good, and it is very tempting to keep that from Mulder, to allow them to remain in their bubble, but she knows that isn’t fair.

Her car idles on the street outside Harold Spuller’s care home and three soft raps sound on her driver’s side window. She sucks in air deeply and wipes the tears from her cheeks before rolling down the window.

“I didn’t mean for things to get so heated back there.”

“Me neither,” she agrees. When her eyes flash up to his, so guilty and fond, her words fall out in a tumble, unable to prolong this evasion of the truth any longer. “I don’t know why I lied to you. I’m not fine. My treatments aren’t working and my doctors don’t think another round will change that.”

“I’m in this with you, Scully.”

“I know you are,” she affirms. She ducks her head down toward the steering wheel, like a little girl caught eating dessert before dinner. “I’m tired, Mulder.” 

“I’ll follow you.”

His headlights shine in her rearview mirror, trailing behind all the way back to where they began this night in Georgetown. Arriving in the apartment, she shuts the door behind them, and informs him, “I’m going to take a shower,” and he nods, reaching forward to squeeze her shoulder. He loosens his tie and starts meandering toward the bedroom. 

The phantom ghost of his touch remains on her shoulder and it reminds her of his romantic soul that she is only now been introduced to. Mulder is more emotionally open and affection than she is. He treats her like a wife. They are married, after all. 

Their marital bliss is of their own design; enjoyably innocent with its lack of certain intimate elements left largely undiscussed. However, there is delight to be found in mere shared company. With a no-work policy now enacted in her home, the opportunity to see funnier, more relaxed, and domestic sides of each other often makes it feel as though their marriage could be real. 

An unspoken agreement to live this arrangement without rules creates something representative of authentic matrimony. Ignoring the initial awkwardness when sharing a bed leads to the normalization of pressing into his warm side each night; falling asleep faster and deeper. Leisurely playing with his hair while reading on the couch one evening introduced a few form of relaxation they both enjoy. He even calls her “honey” occasionally, and she must admit, it makes her feel pleasantly warm to hear it. 

It wasn’t right to keep him out of the loop.

Sitting on the tile shower floor, Scully washes the last six hours from her skin. In an attempt to prove to herself, to everyone, that she can still do this, she pushes herself too far. The best decision for the case was to take down the nurse. For her fragile body, not as much.

A small box sits on top of her towel. She picks it up, weighing it gently in her palm.

Mulder already lies innocently under the covers and appears deeply enthralled in his nighttime reading. He looks very youthful and sweet in his wire-framed glasses and his large feet poking out at the end of the bed. She presents the box in question and inquires, “Mulder, what’s this?”

“Hmm?” he murmurs. He glances up briefly, taking off his glasses. “Oh. Wedding present.”

Eyebrows drawn together in confusion, she sits down on top of the comforter, and cautiously opens the box. Her eyes fall on a gorgeously dainty bracelet with a small diamond affixed to a silver chain. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Scully finally admits. Mulder smiles, wordlessly leaning forward to close the distance between them. His kiss finally comes with soft lips and firm resolve. 

–

A keen ear kept on the exchange occurring in the hallway, Scully hears the malice in “ _let her die with dignity,”_ the intense intent to guilt. Since childhood, Bill has been masterful at identifying a scapegoat. 

Appearing at her bedside, Scully takes her brother’s hand. It has been quite some time since they were together in person and she is aware she should focus on the grand gesture of his presence. But they have always sparred on injustice and she just witnessed him as the purveyor. 

“I don’t want you to talk to him like that,” she tells him. 

It takes almost nothing to generate a quarrel between the two of them. “You keep defending him, Dana, and I don’t see what there is about him to protect,” Bill argues. “You wouldn’t even be in this situation if…”

“Fox has been very helpful,” Maggie interrupts. Their mother is well versed in deescalating the disputes of Dana and Bill; the oil and water of the Scully children. “Bill, sit down and be civil.”

Where Mulder pushes, Bill pulls, and Dana is left somewhere in the middle. Something akin to a jealous feud brews between the two men in her life; each vying for the role of ultimate fixer. It is only when Mulder orchestrates the impossible that her brother cannot deny the miracle. 

Most conversations were plans for a comfortable end or perhaps a prolonged, managed experience. The concept of remission, a life without the dark cloud of cancer, was a possibility never even considered. 

The day of her discharge finally arrives after a final weeklong observation of her progress, and Mulder, as a now regular fixture of the post-critical care ward, shows up to her room early as usual. He drops a bag on her empty hospital bed. “I brought you some clothes from your apartment,” Mulder informs her. “Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything as uniquely versatile as the hospital gown.” 

“I appreciate the effort,” she smiles, ripping open the plastic bag.

Scully can feel an awkwardness emanating from him with three feet between them. She is taking stock of the items he provided when he finally speaks, “Listen, I can be out–” 

With a week to discuss the topic, neither of them were brave enough to allow it. The last thing Scully wants Mulder to believe is she married him to take advantage of a kindness he extended to her. It was done with such a different outcome in mind; a selfless act with an outcome to be bathed in heartache. 

Now, there is no plan on how to approach where things will go from here. Scully didn’t ever think she would be in a position to have to consider it. 

At the very least, they deserve time to enjoy a lack of this particular impending doom. 

“Should we get dinner tonight?”

If there is anything they deserve more of, it is time.

It is health.

It is stability.


	3. emily

Two years on, sometimes Scully believes she will be able to survive without her other. A forgotten voice travels from immortal nirvana to her brother’s residential line. She wonders if what she tells herself is true.

1994; the lost year that exists between them. On an evening in March, returning from a field assignment with Mulder, Melissa leaves a message on her answering machine that Scully can still easily recite.

Things are too hard right now, Dana. I’m safe, I’m with friends in California. I’ll call soon. I love you.

Dana would never have been the golden child. No one surpasses a squid, especially not a fed with some shifty assignment. A shifty fed fares better than a filthy sinner. Charlie wears excommunication with unsweetened pride. And Melissa, the silly new ager, well, she could take no more.

No one thrives at the center of a Scully family scandal. Scully tries to create a rational narrative. It is 1994. Melissa is pregnant; she doesn’t want the baby. She knows plenty of people on the west coast. It was believable.

Her beloved sister, Dana, is abducted, and in the four weeks she is missing, Melissa gives birth, and the baby is adopted. Dana resurfaces in a hospital; left practically for dead. Her sister returns to stand vigil at her bedside.

It becomes a question of mindset. Maggie believes Melissa would have told her; Dana disagrees. Subversion of expectations was the ultimate sin for a Scully child as it was a denouncement of the parenting of William and Margaret. She can attest to her mother’s softening on certain expectations since the death of her father. She still disagrees.

No time for sulking, only pushing through. Working the case through Christmas clearly infuriates Bill. He keeps it to hushed whispers and snide remarks out of Tara’s earshot. Scully often wonders how privy Tara is to anything going on in the Scully family.

Her infertility stings when she looks at her sister-in-law. With her cancer now in remission, the other medicals horrors Scully faced start coming back to the surface. It is another slap; the thought that her sister gave away such a sweet little girl while she will never carry a child.

Scully is a mother. She struggles to quantify what Emily is.

Emily, a living and breathing child, with the face of a Scully, is a violation of her body that someone stole from her, and yet must be fiercely protected. Perhaps Emily is the missing piece.

Scully hurriedly fills out the application for temporary custody. It consists of the normal, straightforward questions found on any application, until her hand is hovering over that box. Single or married.

The only thing happening in sunny San Diego is a completely mundane family Christmas, as far as Mulder is aware. Her words froze during her singular phone call. It seems like reaching out now is more of a bombardment than a simple debrief.

Scully is not in a position to presuppose the enigmatic thoughts of Fox Mulder. Yes, it was by his own volition to marry her and she can even believe that Mulder does love her. It is a mutual respect and a fond devotion. It is not spousal love; not a man that loves his wife.

If she checks the box, Mulder would have to be a father figure to Emily, and it is not her place to make that decision for him. Their marriage was playing house because she was destined to die and Emily does not deserve to be a flour-sack baby in their labyrinthian game.

Her pen swipes across the paper. Single.

\--

Mulder starts with M. Mmm. Emily tells him so.

Emily leaves the crayons and paper to go to the bookshelf. Mulder is sitting in the chair by the window and she gives him the book. She points to the yellow bird on the cover.

“What’s his name?”

“I think that’s Big Bird,” Mulder tells her.

Her Daddy only reads her one book at a time, Mulder reads her three. She goes to the bookshelf for more when Dana comes up close to her. “Emily, Mulder and I have to leave now, but we’ll come back tomorrow.”

Emily looks at Mulder, holding the book, and he says, “I bet you can find a good spot to keep it safe.”

She nods and sets the book against the bed, fixing it when it slides down. Dana and Mulder leave. A lady makes her pick up her crayons before dinner.

“I’m tired,” she insists, holding the lady’s hand on the way to eat.

“First dinner, then bed, Emily.”

\--

A duality develops in relation to another atrocity to her body. It is a swift punch to the throat; knocking the breath so deeply out of her lungs. It is also as mundane as adding milk to the shopping list; it is only another thing.

Her brother’s phone line carries mysteries from one location to another. Landline abandoned, traveling well above the speed limit, Mulder drives toward the children’s home.

“I could have handled it,” she asserts simply.

“I know.”

Mulder, with his complexity of a hero, and innate ability to act so hoggish. Scully wonders if he really believes that.

\--

Her blanket at home is pink sparkles and has Barbie on the pillows. Emily doesn’t like her new blanket nearly as much. It’s just plain pink.

The lady from dinner tucks her in. “I met Mr. Potato Head,” Emily informs her.

Emily doesn’t like the other kids in the new place, especially the boy that calls, “That’s not true! Mr. Potato Head isn’t real.”

“Yes, he is!” she argues. She struggles to sit up with the blanket holding her back. “I met him and he looks like this!” She puffs out her cheeks, making the same face.

“That must have been very exciting, Emily,” the lady adds softly, tucking her in again.

The lights turn off. Emily closes her eyes. She feels cold.

\--

In the work Mulder does with Scully, it is often based more on speculation than he would ever like to admit to anyone. It disgusts him to know that if Emily were any other file in his cabinet, it would bring him joy to map out theories and spar with his partner over them. With the empty coffin staring back at them, Mulder can easily assume a thought is something neither of them want to enter their minds ever again. No hypothesizing to be done here.

Following the funeral, the San Diego bureau fares slightly kinder than their city’s court system. Their California contact, while deeply apologetic for the tragedy that has occurred here, informs them the field office won’t be actively pursuing the case. Aside from following up on a few leads pertaining to the deaths of Roberta and Marshall Sim, it will likely be deemed a cold case.

“I’m very sorry, Agent Scully,” the agent says, padding his final blow. Emily’s case will not be investigated either. Both Mulder and Scully understand the algorithm that goes into the decision of pursuing an investigation. If the case fell into the FBI mainstream, Emily’s chronic health issues, use of experimental treatments, and her parents’ full cognizance to the risks wouldn’t stand a chance against the process.

And if there was anything to investigate, it has already been destroyed by powers far outside the reach of some dinky field office anyway. Whatever the reasoning may be, another Scully woman is still failed by the United States government.

Scully wants the first flight out of San Diego back to Washington and he is more than quick to oblige her. While she very clearly loves the new addition to her family, the sting is just as obvious.

Two hours down in the air, three more to go, and they have barely said a word to each other since take-off. Scully’s head is turned toward the window when he reaches for her hand. “Scully,” he speaks, very quietly.

“No,” she responds with a shake of her head, her voice tight.

Another long stretch of silence and Mulder thinks she maybe falls asleep, which would be a welcome cause for silence, because he isn’t convinced she’s slept more than an hour or two in days. He is about to request a blanket when her forehead presses into his shoulder and the contact reveals her body shaking with the exertion of holding everything inside yet again.

It’s his fierce need to protect her always that causes him to envelope her body with his. Her arms wind tightly around his neck. Her attempts to muffle her sobs in his jacket is only partially successful.

A flight attendant taps him on the shoulder and asks him, “Is everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine,” Mulder blatantly lies. “But maybe we could get a glass of water for my wife.”

It's a rare euphoria to speak those words; his wife. Dana Scully is his wife. A mostly unmentioned fact that gives him a childishly nervous feeling in his stomach. While it never retreated in his mind, it appears to be returning to the forefront of hers.

In the winding process of applying for custody, a second application exists. Scully’s final plea to unite her with her own flesh and blood. Another document that states definitively that they are married. Mulder underwent a grilling from the judge; a practical bullying on the semantics of their marriage.

One’s subconscious works powerfully, in his experience, and when he sat in this same position on Scully’s couch six months ago, the answer came to him so clearly. It wasn’t only for her benefit as a life experience that everyone should have the opportunity to have if they so choose; cancer only sped up the timeline of an inevitably. Mulder has never taken a mightier leap with her and she accepted. A singular score for Fox Mulder.

It’s treated as though it never even existed; his presence in that way completely reverted. He wishes he had more of a chance to prove himself worthy. He wishes he was a less of pussy to actually do it. He will, he’s going to. If she is ever willing to forgive him for all of his transgressions.

Mulder carried the knowledge of her ova and of what was likely (and now, very clearly) done with it with a heaviness that rivaled the many other weights he lugs around inside him. Scully’s hope for recovery was dwindling then and it was only another way to hurt her.

It felt criminal to hijack her happiness when she went into remission and her bliss honestly fed his soul. Now, he only piles onto her pain. And if he was any kind of man, if he was someone deserving of someday being a person she would maybe, eventually, love for real, he would have been a lot fucking better.

The flight attendant delivers a glass of water and a box of tissues on a plastic tray. He takes both and offers the glass to Scully. She scoots forward to the edge of her seat, her back straightened, and it reminds him of Bellefleur, and of that young agent in her red robe, and the fear of simple bug bites. It was the moment of cosmiticity bursting into existence between them.

Scully sips water, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. His eyes never leave her for the rest of the flight. He drives her home under the glow of streetlights.

“I can keep you company, if you want,” he offers after insisting he carry her suitcase inside for her. “Might even be able to catch a replay of the Rose Bowl if we’re lucky.”

“That won’t be necessary,” she replies. One hand holds the door and the other is braced on the frame; a universal sign to get lost told through her body language. “I’m going to take a few days. I already let Skinner know.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she agrees. “Goodnight, Mulder.”

“Goodnight, Scully.”

Once the door is shut, he hears the lock click into place. It pains him to walk away.

Mulder calls Scully in the morning as promised. He calls every morning after. It just rings and rings.

\--

No one is expecting her back in the office until Monday, but by Thursday it becomes increasingly clear that a return to normalcy is what she requires. Scully can only stare at California girls immortalized by ages in threes on her mantel for so long.

She trades in her bathrobe for a beige skirt with matching jacket and she slugs down the last of a cup of coffee while she packs her briefcase. The landline rings in its cradle next to her hand. Her stockinged feet slide against the kitchen tile as she turns to answer.

“Hello?”

An unfamiliar female voice carries cheerily into her ear. “Hi there, this is Amanda over at Liberty Fertility Center. I’m looking for Fox Mulder?”

"This is...” Scully starts, and then she pauses, staring up at the ceiling before answering with a restrained sigh. “This is his wife.”

“I’m following up on a call we received from your husband earlier this week about a sample being stored at our facility and possible ova analysis. He left this as the call back number.”

Scully clicks her tongue against her teeth, nodding slowly. She barely focuses on the conversation and when it ends, she retrieves the phone book, slamming it down on the table in place of her briefcase. She dials the first promising number in the correct category.

Heat overtakes her melancholy. Scully is so, so tired of Mulder blanketing his wrongdoings under the guise of protecting her. It has always, ultimately, been her choice to walk alongside him; it was his choice to marry her. He still fills their partnership, their marriage, with secrets. He still withholds.

She can only imagine what is being done to her ova sitting in some facility. Mulder didn’t even have the decency to tell her any even remained.

Scully arrives at the office on Friday and Mulder is immersed in a sea of paperwork and photographs. It is only eight in the morning and he already has his jacket slung over the back of his chair, his sleeves rolled up over his forearms.

“Hey, I wasn’t expecting you until Monday,” he grins with surprised delight.

Mulder follows her with his eyes as she steps up to his desk. She leans down, kissing him soundly on the mouth, and she observes his dreamy stare when they part.

“I need my ova, Mulder,” she states. Scully pulls a business card out of her pocket; the law firm she called the morning before. “And I want a divorce.”


	4. scully

Scully showers in the very hottest water and douses her skin with three-in-one body wash. She intends to bleach his tub before she leaves. 

Mulder rambles and paces while she sits at the foot of his bed. He spews his stream of consciousness about their dinner order and doesn’t stop moving long enough to give her the mug of tea meant for her. “I thought this might help,” he says, finally halting his feet. “But I’m realizing now that’s really stupid.” 

“It’s okay, Mulder,” she assures him. “I’m fine.” 

No words are needed to express what he thinks of her response. Not long ago, she was making a more concerted effort to be emotionally open. Now, it is safer to be guarded. 

Whenever Mulder has been an ass in the last six years, she has been able to give it right back to him. They possessed well blended humor and their level of professional compatibility was almost strange. But their partnership has evolved into something so tempestuous; ever changing between cordial and cold. 

Scully pins it to charred filling cabinets and case files turned to nothing but ash; half a decade of their work destroyed and a mere piece of masking tape slapped over the basement’s call button in banishment. Mulder gets an odious pleasure from being a jerk about impending reassignment. 

Bombs in Dallas soon overtake their attention; desperate admissions are made in the hallway of a pre-war Alexandria apartment building and kisses tasting of a salty tears go interrupted. Only a short time later is Mulder, her antartician savior, deemed barely worthy of investigating cow shit. 

And Mulder claims he owes it all to her, but he still bites, “ _You’re okay with this,”_ at her while driving through miles of empty fields toward another meaningless task. Her quick “ _Of course not”_ is just as meaningless, if that’s what he thinks, and she wonders if it is a conscious choice to know her so little. 

Certainly, Mulder knows his chickadee. God, she hates Frohike’s phrasing, and it is made especially worse because the meaning isn’t lost on her. They were serious enough for people to wonder what went wrong. Diana is weaseling her way back into Mulder’s life. And Mulder is so quick to let her. 

Mulder very obviously stays in contact with Diana and Scully is completely blind to what he might be telling her. No wonder she chooses to guard herself. 

Diana Fowley arrives like a whirlwind punch to the stomach while the heavy blow of San Diego still aches. Scully struggles to believe how many months of ever-present grief for a child that was never meant to be hers have passed while subjecting herself to reversing the atrocities of her stolen ova. She only extends her, _their,_ suffering with futile efforts at in-vitro fertilization. 

Scully suffers further, with once easy bitterness and sneer now complicated by the memory of watching him sleep in the morning light of Kroner, Kansas, and being suddenly flooded with the overwhelming knowledge that maybe he made her a whole person too. 

It seems, ultimately, her affection ostensibly outweighs her ire, and Padgett effortlessly uncovered what she desires to keep hidden. 

“What did he mean?” 

Scully keeps her eyes on the two dirty plates on the coffee table and longs to pretend she never heard him. She wants to scrub the plates clean with water hissing so loud he can’t ask again. 

“It was a story, it didn’t mean anything,” she finally responds. 

With his elbows to his knees, Mulder runs his hands through his hair, and lets out a forcefully loud breath. “This used to be easy,” he laments. 

“It has never been easy between us, Mulder.”

“And yet you keep me in your life,” he deadpans. “Why do you do that?” 

What a question; the ultimate examination of whatever they are. Scully is a witness to all of the qualities Mulder possesses with six years of evolution. What drew her in were the pillars of his personality; sheer brilliance, unrivaled humanity, and devotion to justice. 

It isn’t quite so serious now. But what he has done for her is so far beyond what any person should expect from another. 

“For the same reasons I always have,” she answers, reaching to place her hand on his knee. “And you keep me in your life. You’re still married to me.” 

He lifts his head. “You know about that.” 

“Lawyers have a tendency to reach out when it takes this long to get the papers back,” she informs him. Mulder laughs good-naturedly, completely unaware that he has given her an _in_ to admit what she has felt since Kroner. But she responds cowardly and creates a fiction of her own. “I won’t ever be able to repay what you did for me when I was sick, Mulder. But this can’t be what you want, is it?” 

“I won’t force you to be married to me, Scully,” he replies lowly. “If you get me a copy, I’ll sign.” 

Scully nods in agreement and stands to take the plates into the kitchen. She lets out a deep breath and attempts to relax her shoulders. She rinses the dishes clean. She wanders past him to bleach the pink ring from the bathtub and leaves late into the night. 

\--

On the first warm Saturday of the year, Scully cannot help but stop at the convenience store ice cream case on her way into whatever would cause Mulder to call her into the office on a weekend. 

She feels a difference in the air when she enters the office with archival newspapers. Mulder makes her laugh so much she can even ignore her crushed dreamsicle. He characteristically abandons her for a wild goose chase. 

Scully devotes the rest of her day to the sun. Treats herself to soft serve on a blanket in the park and buys a new bouquet of flowers for the end table vase. She arrives home in the early evening, her answering machine blinking red. 

“ _This is Fox Mantle for Dana Scully. There is a very special, very early or very late birthday present at Stadium Park that requires immediate attention.”_

Scully likens Mulder to her sophomore year crush in his oversized baseball jersey and the flashes of his enticing smile. She practically floats to his side at his humorous but firm _get over here_ and she lets him teach her to whack horsehide with a hand on her hip that feels as warm as the sun. 

Mulder walks her to her car, two hours later and twenty dollars poorer. His eyes catch hers with the same intensity as the hallway. Her voice is a dreamy whisper, “Thank you for the lesson.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Ms. Scully.” 

With a baseball in her passenger seat, Scully smiles the whole way home. 


	5. samantha (the interlude)

A blizzard overtakes Alexandria in blustering flurries, snow following them from the hospital to Hegel Place. Recovering from the chill, Scully watches sliding cars and whooping partiers on the streets below. 

His sling already abandoned, Mulder stands completely still as she closes the distance between them. She holds his elbow, right below the bandage. “You weren’t supposed to take that off,” she reprimands. 

“You should know by now that I’m a rebel, Doc.” 

Mulder may fancy himself a rebel. Scully might classify it as a professional rebellion; insurgency in the face of injustice. It is nearly a requirement of their work that he be the instigator of such acts and she stand skeptically by as a reminder of protocol and reason. But Scully has her own commotion below the surface; a radical girl left on pause that would easily deem her partner a square.

A youthful Dana steals her mother’s cigarettes at thirteen; wields boxed dye and a pierced navel at twenty-three. When she’s thirty-three, she marries him, and she doubts she would have looked at him twice at any other point in time. 

Opportunities to kiss her were always plentiful; seven years worth of fated moments and flirtatious exchanges. Yet he chooses New Year’s Eve. 

“Why tonight?” 

“The world could’ve ended,” he murmurs, so close to her that she can feel his breath on her cheeks. 

“And that’s the way you wanted to go?”

Mulder nods in bashful memorization. Their mirrored movements happen so easily; her eyes flicker down to his lips just as he does the same. She expects the first touch of their lips to be awkward. Perhaps their heads would move in the same direction, or their noses would bump, but it is completely synchronous, and unrestricted in a way no other kiss with him has ever been. 

And what a rarity, for one kiss to feel like such adoration. A moment of pure contentedness; a chance encounter with no heartache between them.

\--

Samantha Mulder is older than her by a mere month and a day. Scully knows this from her many reviews of casefile X-40253 and Mulder’s faint sense of melancholy shortly after the beginning of each new year. 

With an explosive first half to her thirty-somethings, Scully would hardly consider thirty-six to be a milestone age. But 2000 is still very young. 

His sister is the baseline to their work. Mulder finds his bread and butter in all aspects of the paranormal unknown but Samantha is his holy grail. His investigation is never fully suspended. He guards casefile X-40253 as something precious but mentions very little about her. Sometimes Scully feels she only knows Samantha the Tragedy. 

On the same night they arrive home from Chicago, the Knicks play the Bulls on his television screen. She somehow watches alone on his couch and she is surprised he isn’t glued to the cushions with his team already up by a anxiety-inducingly small margin. 

But he seems completely focused on making her dinner. When she was surviving on toast and baked chicken during her cancer treatment, he never utilized his stockpile of bachelor recipes, and she has come to find out he has a few decent dishes. 

“Hungry?” Mulder asks, appearing behind her with a steaming bowl. He passes it carefully into her hands, a napkin under the bowl before he sits on the other end of the couch with his own. Predictably, he quickly shifts his focus to the basketball game. 

It seems, every few years, Scully witnesses Mulder from a new side. Whatever they are doing, dating, whatever, it is interesting to see this person. Not her professional partner or her qsaui-husband. A version of Mulder that has interests outside cryptids, little hobbies he enjoys, and the ability to cook her pasta with a tomato cream sauce and little chunks of vegetables. 

Picturing Mulder with his bowl of pasta for one and his Knicks game with only a tank of mollies for company makes her a little sad but she realizes some may say the same of her romance novels and salads eaten on the floor. 

Companionship takes many forms. What she holds with Mulder never stays the same from one year to the next. The millennium held a new evolution; a progression that Scully quite likes. 

As she slides her empty bowl onto the coffee table, her eyes scan the living room until they settle on the photograph hanging above the television. She nudges his thigh with her toe, asking him, “How old were you in that picture?”

“Huh?” he mumbles, his eyes still on the screen until she repeats herself. “Oh, uh, I think I was eight, and Sam was four. Our parents took us to Florida for her birthday and we went to a waterpark. And,” he laughs slightly in remembrance, “I almost drowned on that trip. I got caught under an inflatable ring on the lazy river and my dad pulled me out by my neck and asked what the hell I was doing. And I remember Samantha saying, _Foxy, you can hold onto my floatie because I swim better than you.”_

Scully likes his story; it is the kind of childhood memory she always wished he would share with her. But she still knows what it feels like for good memories of a sister to turn sour. 

Legs across his lap, Scully leans forward to hug Mulder tightly around the shoulders. “Ahab always said water parks were created for bad swimmers,” she teases. He cracks a smile, bringing her hands to his lips to kiss her knuckles. 

“How about seconds, Doc?” 

He collects their bowls. Watching him retreat into the kitchen, Scully is dead set to make thirty-six spectacular. 

\--

Scully creates rules that are just _asking_ to be broken.

She bans sleepovers during on workweek by the end of January. But he would definitely define a Wednesday morning as part of the workweek and somehow she’s standing in front of his mirror with a toothbrush in her mouth. “No sleepovers on a weekday,” he comments as he reaches to turn on the shower, giving her a quick tap on the ass with the palm of his hand. Toothpaste splatters on his t-shirt in retaliation. 

It’s customary to disclose interoffice relationships to the higherups. Interdepartmental relationships are monitored particularly closely, especially when he is technically in a position of power above her. Not that he’s ever taken that responsibility seriously. Keeping things quiet for now is what works but making sure his professional partnership with Scully doesn’t become blurred with their actual relationship proves more difficult than Mulder originally thought. 

Her career’s trajectory was clearly important to Scully when they first met. Given the nature of their cases, it seems to have shifted to more of a background concern as the years went on. He can’t criticize her apprehension but it still doesn’t change how much he wants to proudly present Dana Scully as his partner in every way imaginable. 

She seems blind to how mind-blowingly amazing she is. Scully doesn’t hold a candle to anyone else. Mulder has been gifted with the smartest, wittiest, sexiest, and arguably most complex girlfriend in the entire world. 

With everything still so new, they haven’t discussed titles yet, even though she is still technically his wife. It was so casual; the way she told him that maybe they should put the divorce on pause for now. The internal excitement that he felt was almost embarrassing. Because maybe someday it wouldn’t just be a pause. Perhaps she’ll bless him with the permeance of matrimony. 

She’s endlessly cute, sitting on his desk with her feet swinging above the floor with his case notes in her hand. 

"These are indecipherable,” she chides him. It’s an easy opportunity to step up a little too close next to her. She runs her finger along the page. “What even is this word?” 

“Apophenia,” he answers. “A spontaneous illusion of meaningful patterns. Commonly displayed when seeing faces in clouds but is extremely relevant in cases with those pesky conspiracy theorists. Or,” he continues, shifting to stand between her legs, his mouth right at her ear, “A partner with true goddessian qualities.” 

“Hardly an illusion.” 

Scully was truly put on this earth to tease him mercilessly; to completely end all cognitive function while giving him most openhanded affection of his existence. Mulder is forever grateful for the altruism of a past life that allowed him to be gifted with her. 

In an act of bravery, his hand trails up her thigh, until he’s under her skirt. She teases him with her choice of hosiery; stockings with garters instead of pantyhose. His fingers graze bare skin. “Mulder, not in the office,” she asserts with her hands on his shoulders.

He does manage to control himself until the day ends. Scully purposefully makes it difficult. She definitely didn’t need as many files from the bottom drawer as she was retrieving; nor is one required to lick yogurt off a spoon so downright pornographically.

On their way to the parking garage, he innocently inquires, “Leaving me all alone tonight, Doc?” Despite her rolling eyes, she’s smiling. 

\--

He crushes Scully to his body, soaking her shirt with his tears. He laments on never finding what he needs; how he will never achieve his only goal. 

Every time his tears begin to slow, a new thought arises. He voices the regrets of his unkindness those last few months in 1979. Mulder was ruthless in his teasing, like he needed Samantha to repent for their parents’ favoritism toward her. Even when she was gone, he never won that title. Bill Mulder held him at arms’ length and his mother took her guilt out on him. And all of them are gone, leaving him with unchangeable facts. 

After his longest night, California still calls him back. He and Billie LaPierre are kindred in spirit, different only in their packaging, but with little girls lost. A field of protective souls finally frees him. With Samantha’s phantom arms around him, Mulder returns, and he feels like the boy that was once kept afloat by her in the Florida sun. 

It’s those words that always seemed so impossible; _I’m free._ He speaks them truthfully. Some actual satisfaction to his life’s greatest mystery. Who would’ve thought. 

Mulder knows there are still answers to be found; Samantha underwent six years of clear violation and torment that he will never be able to reverse. His brain can’t process what a child could do for such villainous entities. But Samantha broke through their brainwashing, escaping with the knowledge that she deserved a better life, and from everything she wrote, Mulder knows that’s true. 

Scully seems unconvinced by his tranquility. She keeps sneaking glances over her shoulder while he removes his shoes. He slides across the bed to press a kiss to her shoulder. 

“You’re sure you’re alright?” she asks, leaning forward to place her earrings on the nightstand with a quiet click. 

“I can’t explain it,” he admits. “But I feel complete somehow.” 

After spending years with the crushing weight of this loss, now, it feels manageable, like he can treat Samantha as less of a mystery. He can go to a tangible place to feel close to her and he has a pretty clear idea of what, ultimately, happened to her. And what’s still missing will eventually come together. 

It’s been five years since Scully lost her own sister and Mulder wonders if she feels like he does. She was able to catch Melissa’s killer. She must understand this sense of resolution.

“Do you feel that way? About Melissa?” 

Scully remains quiet. “I accept it,” she finally answers. She turns her body to look back toward him. “I don’t think I feel the same way you do.” 

What brings closure is a funny thing. And it doesn’t come to everyone.

\--

He’s collapsed in a jetlagged heap, and it could’ve been minutes, or hours, but it’s dark when a dip in the bed awakes him. Her body’s warms his side. 

She massages his left hand, moving slowly from finger to finger until she reaches the forth. She circles his knuckle. “I don’t want to spend my life with anyone but you,” she murmurs, barely audible. 

Scully leaves shortly before dawn, only pausing to press a kiss to his cheek before she disappears into the bathroom with her clothes from the night before. He drifts slowly to sleep, but the cogs in his brain are turning fast, and Mulder doesn’t think she even realizes what master plan she has created. 

So many roads could have been taken. And, somehow, she follows his. 

\--

Scully adores the classics, so it’s his obvious duty as her loving partner to pick the most lowbrow nonsense he can find on movie night. Caddyshack’s got its moments, and Mulder wishes she would appreciate that, but he certainly can’t complain about her method of expressing her disinterest in his choice. 

It’s a date night staple to rile each other up by being coy, but Mulder just spent an entire week watching her completely spellbound by her invisible man, and if that didn’t pull the string connected from his brain to his dick, he doesn’t know what possibly could. 

With a downward tilt of his chin and a quick burst of agility, Mulder has Scully on her back against the arm of the couch, and his mouth on hers. It’s not a loss to abandon the film entirely when he strips away that virginal long sleeve and reveals devilishly maroon panties. She’s always been as angelic as she is wicked. He can’t believe she allows him to slip into her so effortlessly. 

“What was your third wish, Mulder?”

It comes out breathy, but wholly serious, and if she really knew, she would classify him a lunatic. His fingers traipse between her thighs; a momentary distraction. She splays her own fingers over the back of his neck, and asks nearly desperately, “What was the wish?” 

It was never that the wishes were too vague. Mulder knows rebellion when he sees it. He’s in love with a rebel. And maybe, eventually, it’s time for the radicals to get exactly what they truly desire.

\--

Scully trudges through days of long, unexplainable bouts of fatigue. Mulder practically spills her into the car on the way home from the airport. She walks in on something that feels illegal. 

On the living room wall, the clock reads 11:15. Mulder is now three hours behind, with his flight set to arrive in Bellefleur at seven o’ clock. It ticks toward the half hour when his call finally comes and she answers before the end of the first ring. 

It begins with the usual pleasantries; what he missed before she left the office and the quality of the in-flight movie. “I want to pack up our gear and go out there tonight, Scully,” he explains, transitioning to inevitable seriousness. “If what we’re being told is the truth, nothing will be there tomorrow.” 

Scully hates when Mulder’s wild recklessness seems rational to her. She could spend the time putting in her two cents, advise him to spend a few more days gathering evidence, but in her debility, she can only say, “Be careful, Mulder.” 

“I love you too, Doc.” 

Mulder offers such effortless affection; declares his love so easily. He has indescribable confidence in what she always holds closer to her heart. She still feels it so much, and finds her ways to show him often, and she hopes it registers to him.

“ _I’ve got the car, Agent Mulder,”_ Scully hears in the muffled background. 

Mulder switches to a professional tone. “I’ll, uh, call you to debrief in the morning,” he assures her, but his voice devolves into its previous softness when it seems that Skinner has retreated. “And check the top dresser drawer. I left you something.” 

Before the line can click, Scully adds, “I love you.” 

“Me too.”

She returns the phone to its cradle and Scully stands, still a little wobbly, and makes the short walk to the bedroom. Atop neatly organized undergarments, a copy of Steel Magnolias. A laugh escapes. 

While a little late to for a movie, Scully pops it into the VCR, and covers herself with a blanket. She is asleep before the end of the first act. She awakes at a quarter to four, and feeling compelled to return to the office, she summons the only three people Mulder may unequivocally trust almost as much as her. 

Her realization of Mulder’s fate is so sudden, it takes her down. And when they stand at her bedside, no one has to say what she already knows. 


End file.
